The Common Law in India - College of Social Sciences and ...

The Indian Constitution 203expressing the fundamental ideas which are implicit inhis Constitution." 4 xIndia has, however, chosen a different course.Following the pattern of the Constitution of the UnitedStates she has enacted a Bill of Rights. As in othermatters, the enactment of the Bill of Rights in theIndian Constitution has its roots in the historical backgroundof the Constitution. Even when the Governmentof India Act of 1935 was being framed by theBritish Parliament, demands were made on behalf ofIndians for the incorporation of a Bill of Rights inthat Act. That view was rejected on the ground thatsuch a declaration of rights in the abstract wouldserve no useful purpose. With its long history offoreign rule and sensitive to its disabilities and discriminations,the Indian mind had come to regard aBill of Rights as an essential part of a Constitution.Some of the makers of the Indian Constitution werein the vanguard of India's fight for freedom and thememory of their experiences made a declaration ofrights in the Constitution inevitable. " The Indianreaction (in enacting the Bill of Rights), like theAmerican reaction, is in large measure a product ofBritish rule." 42Nor must we forget the wide divergence betweenconditions in England and in India. The Indian legislatureshad not the age-old ancestry and tradition ofthe British Parliament. India is a country of vastdistances inhabited by peoples belonging to different41 Sir Ivor Jennings, Some Characteristics of the Indian Constitution,pp. 3, i.« Ibid., p. 85.